Q: Ted Needle, who lives in an unincorporated area of Riverside
County, often drives through the interchange of Highway 91 and
Tyler Street in the city of Riverside. He called in a question
prompted by others readers upset over the red-light cameras
there.

This is a hairy spot, Needle pointed out. Traffic converges from
on- and off-ramps to and from the freeway in both directions.
Vehicles travel north and south along Tyler. Motorists turn onto or
from Indiana Avenue, joining the fray on Tyler. And the Galleria at
Tyler to the north and railroad tracks to the south contribute to
the congestion. People turn onto or from Tyler in many
directions.

Given the complicated navigation, Needle said he’s experienced a
tricky situation that triggered the camera on two occasions. He
hasn’t been ticketed, but worries his luck will run out.

“What occurs when a driver finds himself in the intersection and
has no place to go, because of cars that make right turns (in front
of him) … and the signal changes, and the drivers are found
caught in the intersection?” Needle asked.

Does the camera issue tickets to someone who entered the
intersection on a green light but gets stuck in the middle on a red
when other drivers suddenly block his way?

“If you told someone in law enforcement, they’d tell you, ‘if
you can’t make it through, don’t enter the intersection,’ ” Needle
said.

But hesitating means sitting through several green lights,
snarling traffic behind you. “It’s an engineer’s nightmare to try
to make anything better,” Needle said, “but on top of that it’s
unfair they have a red-light camera,” he said. It adds the stress
of a feared ticket to the complex and unpredictable traffic
patterns.

Meanwhile, Riverside resident Rudy Chavarria, whose question in
March about cameras at that interchange prompted a series of angry
comments from readers, chimed in again to complain that someone
with a red-light-camera ticket must prepay the fine — several
hundred dollars — before contesting it in court. He asks why.

A: Decisions whether to ticket drivers are made on a
case-by-case basis, said Lt. Eric Charrette, commander of the
Riverside Police Department’s traffic bureau.

The city employs active-duty and retired police officers to
review photos and videos generated by the cameras, Charrette said.
A human, not the camera computer system, decides whether to mail a
ticket.

Needle is correct that drivers should not enter an intersection
on a green light if they can’t get all the way through it because
of traffic. Generally, judging whether you can clear the
intersection is an easy call, Charrette said.

“But that’s not reality” at Tyler and the 91, he conceded. He’s
sat through several cycles of these lights himself, waiting while
only two cars at a time proceed on a green light. Charrette
acknowledged that vehicles squeeze through that interchange in ways
that block other drivers.

“It happens,” Charrette said. “Is it right? No.”

The camera reviewers “rule for the driver (who triggered the
camera) whenever possible,” Charrette said, and they do have a view
of the whole intersection. So “if it’s not fair, or difficult to
assess,” they give a driver the benefit of the doubt, he said.

That’s probably why Needle never got ticketed, though without
reviewing Needle’s videos, Charrette can’t say for sure. If someone
gets a ticket in the mail, the reviewer felt confident the driver
broke the law, he said.

As for paying the fine before going to court, Charrette
confirmed that drivers fighting tickets must post bail — the
ticket fine — in advance. That’s meant to ensure they show up for
their court appointment, and prevents people who have lost their
cases from leaving court without paying, in which case someone
would have to track them down to collect.

A driver who loses his court case doesn’t have to pay anything
further because he paid the fine up front, while one who wins gets
a refund mailed to him, Charrette said.

Confused about state or local traffic laws? Concerned about a
traffic condition? Send your questions, along with an e-mail
address, phone number, full name and city to ontheroad@PE.com or
call at 951-375-3720. Note that due to the volume of queries
received, only those published can be answered.

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